Multivitamins that cause GI discomfort. Sounds counterproductive, right? After all, aren’t multivitamin supplements intended to gut health? Among many other things?
Yes, but, all the same, many multivitamins may come with unwanted side effects. Such as an upset gut, even for users without sensitive stomachs.
This could be due to one poorly made multivitamin. Or it could be a combination of multivitamins and supplements, the sum total of overwhelms and upsets your stomach.
Which brings us to the main question at hand: what is the Best Men’s Multivitamin for Sensitive Stomach?
Ideally, it’s a multivitamin stack that not only doesn’t upset the stomach but actually improves gut health, as well as… well, all health systems across the body. Meaning that it’s an effective multivitamin that doesn’t come with side effects, even for sensitive stomach users.
But to address that question, we need to first address what makes a men’s multivitamin effective (and safe) in the first place. So, let’s get to it!
Men’s Multivitamin Guide
Is a multivitamin supplement even necessary to a men’s health regimen? It’s a fair question to ask of, really, all natural, food-based supplements. If you can get these nutrients through food, why not just get them through food?
Well, if you can, do it! Except the problem we’re facing with all that today is multi-fold…
Modern problems with food:
- Whole foods are expensive.
- Food processing depletes a food’s nutrients.
- Exceptional health demands exceptionally healthy foods.
Plus, how can we even know, unless we’re growing and hunting our food ourselves, that our store- and restaurant-bought meals are actually providing sufficient nutrients?
Bodybuilders in particular take issue with the modern diet, as their increased muscle mass requires increased nutrient intake.
So, while multivitamins do not replace a proper, healthy, whole-food meal, they do supplement your diet (because they’re supplements). In such a way that fills all the nutritional holes bored by today’s incredibly shady food-processing practices.
The benefits of filling those nutritional holes are also multi-fold. We’ll take you through all these benefits below…
The Men’s Health Benefits of Multivitamins
Roughly speaking, everyone may benefit from all vitamins and minerals found in most multivitamin supplements. While there are customized multivitamins for particular demographics and health goals (e.g., the prenatal multivitamin), everyone needs all vitamins and minerals, albeit to varying degrees.
Having said that, an effective multivitamin stack does fulfill certain health requirements particular to men, and in such a way that may improve the efficacy of other health- and fitness-related supplements.
The health benefits of multivitamins include:
Testosterone Synthesis
The primary male steroid hormone testosterone does not just pop into existence out of thin air.
To create testosterone, the body takes several hormonal and enzymatic steps from the brain to the testes that signal, trigger, and synthesis testosterone production.
Any number of vitamins and minerals may participate in this elaborate testosterone-producing schematic. However, some micronutrients seem more directly linked to testosterone levels.
Covering all micronutrient bases ensures that all direct and indirect pathways to better testosterone activity are optimized.
Sexual Health and Performance
A decline in sex drive may signal a decline in healthy micronutrient levels.
Of course, given the overlap between sexual health and male sex hormones, this may be a secondary consequence of low testosterone levels. Yet, vitamins and minerals also play other various biological roles relevant to sexual health, from blood flow to elevated mood.
Muscle Gains
To increase anabolic muscle gains, you need to first build protein.
While supplementing a protein powder or BCAA stack may assist with this, having all the right nutrients involved in protein synthesis, growth hormone activity, muscle tissue support, etc. is also incredibly important to your strength training gains.
Under states of nutrient-deficiency, the body may fail efficiently prioritize protein synthesis as a consequence of high-intensity training. Forcing you to work out harder than what’s necessary for those gains.
Energy Expenditure
The body has several energy expenditure plans, though we’d prefer our bodies to prioritize our stored fat as an energy fuel source.
From carbohydrates to triglycerides, even to our muscle proteins. Our metabolism may convert several compounds into usable energy to keep our brains active and alive throughout the day.
To lose weight, many exercisers abide by a fasted training regimen (i.e., they work out on an empty stomach), which encourages the body to burn stored fat for exercise energy. However, certain vitamins and minerals also co-facilitate a healthy metabolism, one that balances blood sugar levels while promoting lean muscle mass over fat gains.
Nutrient deficiencies may contribute to unhealthy body composition, not to mention detrimental metabolic issues.
Heart and Cardio Health
You need your heart and cardiovascular system healthy for obvious reasons: they keep your brain and body alive and well-circulated.
A good cardiovascular plumbing system ensures clean, healthy traffic of red blood cells, oxygen, hormones, and other bio-active bodily compounds throughout the body. Any blockages may contribute to very serious health conditions.
Multivitamins help with cardio health. By supporting blood vessel integrity, blood pressure levels, heart structure, and parasympathetic relaxation.
Skin, Hair, and Nail Health
There’s truth to the stereotype: men are dirty. Dirt under nails, unkempt beards, flaky elbow skin—many men aren’t quick to care about such cosmetic concerns.
But this doesn’t mean men don’t care about skin, hair, and nail health.
No one wants to walk around looking like a walking flake of dandruff with severe scurvy. Weak cartilage, skin rashes, and inordinate hair loss may be due to micronutrient deficiencies and any other concomitant stressors, such as excess psychological stress itself.
Which Micronutrients are Important to Male Health?
All micronutrients are important to male health. However, there are a few vitamins and minerals that are particularly worth consideration, insomuch that they improve particular aspects of male health.
These micronutrients include the following:
- Zinc
This is THE man mineral. Directly involved in the production of testosterone, zinc is highly concentrated in the testes, where the mineral serves as a T building block precursor that’s absolutely essential to T synthesis. It’s not an exaggeration to say no zinc equals no testosterone, it’s that important to the production of this male hormone. Not to mention that zinc also helps neutralize female hormone prolactin.
- Vitamin D
While the pathway isn’t exactly known, vitamin D levels do seem to directly correlate with healthy testosterone levels. Similar to zinc, low D equals low T. Simple as that. The problem, though, is that men, especially men in sun-deprived locales, fail to get enough vitamin D in their diet (or in their sun-exposed activities). Supplementing vitamin D may help keep male mood, strength, and vitality up.
- Boron
It’s a funny paradox: exceptional testosterone levels contribute to exceptional estrogen levels. Thanks to aromatase, the enzyme responsible for converting testosterone to estrogen, the body naturally deactivates high male hormone activity with a counterbalance of female hormone activity. This is why men on anabolic steroids take estrogen blockers, ensuring that their muscle and strength gains don’t also come with man-boob gains. However, the mineral boron may also naturally reduce aromatase activity, thereby optimizing a more male-friendly testosterone-to-estrogen ratio balance.
- Magnesium
Ever heard of ZMA? It’s a sports nutrition trio that stacks zinc + magnesium + B6. Together, these three micronutrients seem to assist with muscle nutrient replenishment, as well as overnight sleep quality and recovery. Magnesium plays a significant role in the latter aspect of ZMA with its relaxing effects on cognition and blood pressure. However, the mineral also seems to be linked to healthy testosterone activity, perhaps due to magnesium’s inhibitory role on SHBG (sex hormone-binding globulin), a protein that deactivates testosterone.
What Makes Multivitamins Hard to Digest?
Multivitamins are a unique category of supplements, given that they target not a specific health or fitness measure but rather all health and fitness measures.
By providing a comprehensive stack of vitamins and minerals, multivitamins qualify as general health supplements. Yet, to successfully tackle general health and wellbeing, a multivitamin needs all the essential vitamins and minerals involved in damn near everything the body does to do what it does.
Roughly speaking.
With so many ingredients, ‘bad’ multivitamins pose an exceptional risk of:
- Negative Ingredient Interactions: individually safe ingredients may have negative side effects when interacting with other bio-active ingredients.
- Poor Nutrient Absorption: weak ingredient forms and synthetic additives may impair proper nutrient absorption into the body, rendering a formula useless.
- Intestinal Irritation and Discomfort: unnatural ingredients and additives, negative ingredient interactions, poor manufacturing processes, etc.—any and all of these may cause upset stomach.
To reduce the risk of these adverse effects, a multivitamin must abide by our criteria listed below.
Best 5 Supplement’s Criteria for the Best Men’s Multivitamin for Sensitive Stomach
Really, all supplements should abide by this list.
Yet, specifically for a multivitamin to qualify as the best men’s multivitamin for sensitive stomach, the following questions must be addressed:
- Natural Ingredients: are the micronutrients in natural, bio-active forms?
- Easy to Absorb: are the capsules clean and green and easily absorbed?
- Proper Dosages: are the ingredients overdosed? Underdosed? Just right??
- Proprietary Blend: can you even see the ingredient dosages? (This is a legal requirement for many vitamins and minerals.)
- Minimal Additives: are the additives excessive or low in number?
- Price-per-Value: does the quality and efficacy match the price?
Another key consideration when it comes to multivitamin supplements is whether or not they get to the point, which is providing essential vitamins and minerals.
Many multivitamin stacks boast having a “hybrid” formula design (e.g., a caffeinated multivitamin!!), yet their additional “hybrid” elements tend to distract from the stack’s main goal while also increasing the risk of negative ingredient interactions and poor nutrient absorption.
Stick to a multivitamin stack that sticks to the point!
Best Men’s Multivitamin for Sensitive Stomach
*To Buy or Learn More, Visit: www.performancelab.com
The only multivitamin stack that meets our criteria listed above is an awesome health stack altogether for men with or without sensitive stomachs: Performance Lab Whole-Food Multi, a comprehensive complex of food-identical vitamins and minerals supplied in a gut healthy prebiotic + probiotic delivery system.
All-natural ingredients encased in all-natural capsules—nothing more, nothing less.
This is truly an impressive multivitamin that serves a sturdy nutrient foundation for all other supplements in your daily health stack.
Check it out:
Performance Lab Whole-Food Multi for Men Supplement Facts
Compared to cheaper, weaker, synthetic multivitamin supplements, Performance Lab supplies a gut healthy complex of vitamins and minerals.
This means that it not only delivers on each ingredient’s health benefits, but also contributes to healthy intestinal flora. Through a patented fermentation process called NutriGenesis™, Performance Lab’s multivitamin formulas are Lactobacillus-cultured and great for gut health.
By optimizing digestive health, Performance Lab Whole-Food Multi ensures safe absorption of its vitamins and minerals.
Once absorbed, these micronutrients benefit your overall health and wellbeing in the following ways:
Food-Identical BioGenesis™ Vitamins and Minerals
- Vitamin A: antioxidant for eye health, immunity, protein synthesis.
- Vitamin C: potent antioxidant for cardio, skin, gum, bone, muscle.
- Vitamin D3: the “sunlight” vitamin for bone, testosterone, muscle health.
- Vitamin E: antioxidant for cardio, hair, skin, nails, tissue repair.
- Vitamin K1 + K2: fat-soluble vitamin for bone, cardio, connective tissue.
- Vitamin B1: or thiamine; supports nervous system, energy metabolism.
- Vitamin B2: or riboflavin; supports red blood cells, energy metabolism.
- Vitamin B3: or niacin; supports circulation, metabolism, nervous system, skin.
- Vitamin B5: or pantothenic acid; supports metabolism, hormones, cardio.
- Vitamin B6: or pyridoxine; supports brain chemicals, circulation, energy, mood.
- Vitamin B7: or biotin; supports your beautiful hair, skin, nails.
- Vitamin B9: or folic acid; supports new cell formation, DNA synthesis.
- Vitamin B12: or cobalamin; supports metabolism, heart, cognition.
- Calcium: mineral for bone health, joints, cardio, muscle, nervous system.
- Iodine: a thyroid precursor for metabolic energy and thyroid function.
- Magnesium: key for muscle relaxation, sleep quality, testosterone, cardio.
- Zinc: manly mineral for testosterone synthesis, immunity, vision, cell growth.
- Selenium: antioxidant assistance with immunity, thyroid function.
- Copper: used for red blood formation, energy, immunity, vision, nervous system.
- Manganese: enzyme cofactor supports metabolism, blood sugar, bones.
- Chromium: fat burning mineral for energy, weight management, blood sugar.
- Molybdenum: supports enzymatic activity, energy metabolism.
- Strontium: supports bones, joints.
- Inositol: an anxiolytic for nervous system health, skin, cognition, mood.
- Vanadium: supports blood sugar, cardio, bones, muscle tissue, growth factor.
- Boron: another manly mineral for health testosterone-to-estrogen balance.
Probiotic NutriGenesis™ Micronutrients + Prebiotic Plantcaps® for a Healthy Gut
The combination of Lactobacillus-cultured micronutrients and Performance Lab’s Plantcaps® capsules, which are constructed out of fermented tapioca (pullulan), supplies a probiotic + prebiotic that’s awesome for gut health and nutrient absorption.
Roughly speaking, here are the differences between probiotics and prebiotics:
- Probiotics: live bacteria that may improve your gut microbiota health.
- Prebiotics: foods, mostly fibers, that feed and nourish your gut microbiota.
In other words, probiotics are dietary bacteria and prebiotics are dietary fibers that feed the bacteria currently in your gut. Both are great for gut health; however, many people overlook the significant gut health benefits of prebiotics, which indiscriminately assist with your body’s healthy gut bacteria. This is important considering that not all gut biota profiles are the same.
Even so, the probiotic + prebiotic combo here makes Performance Lab Whole-Food Multi not only easy on sensitive stomachs but healthy for sensitive stomachs. And you won’t find any additional additives or colorants or synthetic compounds found in this formula. Only all-natural, vegan-friendly, eco-friendly, non-GMO goodness here!
Other Frequently Asked Questions
When should I take Performance Lab Whole-Food Multi?
Daily is best. As the label’s directions suggest, “Take 4-6 Performance Lab® Whole-Food Multi capsules daily. For best results take 2-3 capsules in the morning and 2-3 capsules in the evening, with or without food. For those seeking additional nutritional reinforcement, up to six Performance Lab® Whole-Food Multi capsules daily may be taken.”
Where can I buy this multivitamin stack?
You can buy Performance Lab Whole-Food Multi and all Performance Lab supplements at the company’s website, link here: performancelab.com. The pricing for this supplement works as follows:
- One bottle: $40 for 120 capsules
- Two bottles: $76 for 240 capsules (5% saving)
- Three bottles: $108 for 360 capsules (10% saving)
Essentially, each bottle added to the order reduces the total price by 5% (up to three bottles). For a daily supplement, buying in bulk is the cost-effective way to go here.
Is there a women’s multivitamin for sensitive stomach?
Yes. Listed with the “For Men” formulation, Performance Lab Whole-Food Multi for Women supplies many of the same micronutrients at the same high quality, with exception to a few female-specific modifications, such as:
- More Vitamin B9: For Men (400mcg), For Women (800mcg)
- More Calcium: For Men (18mg), For Women (21mg)
- Iron Added: For Women Only (8mg)
- More Magnesium: For Men (17mg), For Women (21mg)
Again, all safe, effective, food-identical micronutrients encased in easy-to-absorb Plantcaps® capsules with zero harmful artificial additives. To learn more about Performance Lab Whole-Food Multi for Women, click here.
Are there other supplements I can take to improve my gut health?
Yes, while all Performance Lab’s supplements are delivered in prebiotic Plantcaps®, Performance Lab Prebiotic specifically supports gut microflora for improved digestive immunity and metabolic health: link here.
Final Thoughts
Though multivitamins are at exceptional risk of causing intestinal discomfort, namely due to the sheer volume of ingredients in their formulas, many other health supplements may acutely or gradually lead to GI issues. This is especially common with powder supplements saturated with artificial flavors, FD&C colors, preservatives, and who-knows-what-else manufacturers are loading their supplements with these days.
In the age of information, we only seem to be growing more anxious about what we don’t know, especially when it comes to the types of foods and supplements we’re putting in our bodies. Where does our food come from? How do I even know if the manufacturer’s telling the truth?? By simply sticking to simple, straightforward supplements—from a company with a solid reputation as well—we can alleviate much of the anxiety that comes with worrying about what we’re throwing down our gullet and into our stomachs. Performance Lab Whole-Food Multi for Men fits that bill.
To learn more about Performance Lab Whole-Food Multi, click here.
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